New South Wales v Lian Bin “Robert” Xie

TrueAllele resolves complex mixture in quintuple family murder

Crime

On July 18, 2009, police in Sydney, Australia, entered the blood-soaked home of Min and Lily Lin. Min, his sister Irene, wife Lily, and the couple’s two young boys—Henry (12) and Terry (9)—were found dead, killed by a combination of asphyxiation and a blunt, hammer-like object.

Evidence

Blood swabs were taken from the victims’ house directly after the crime. Later, a brown stain—found on the garage floor of Min’s sister and her husband, Robert Xie—was found and analyzed.

DNA

The New South Wales laboratory developed DNA data from the brown stain and blood from the Lin house.

Match

The lab found that all of their evidence contained a mixture of at least 3 people that were also related. This made the DNA hard to interpret using traditional methods of DNA interpretation.

TrueAllele

The computer separated out the mixture data into its contributors, finding that the brown stain and blood swab matched each other. Both pieces of evidence were found to match the genotypes of all 5 victims.

Cybergenetics

Cybergenetics Dr. Mark Perlin testified at an admissibility hearing in 2014, and then again in 2015 and 2016 in front of a New South Wales jury.

Outcome

Xie had two mistrials and then a hung jury before finally being convicted in his 4th trial. Xie was sentenced to 5 consecutive life sentences in prison without parole.